


Comfort on the Curb

by layalee



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Allison Argent, Alive Erica Reyes, Alive Vernon Boyd, Alpha Derek, Canonical Character Death, Claudia Stilinski Feels, Claudia Stilinski Memories, Cora is part of the pack, Derek is a Good Alpha, Derek is a Good Friend, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feels, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pack, Peter is part of the pack, Pre-Relationship, Stiles centric, Werewolf Jackson Whittemore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 12:21:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8143852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/layalee/pseuds/layalee
Summary: Also known as "A Dozen Eggs, Two Cartons of Milk, and One Boyfriend Please"In which Stiles tries to cope with his mother's anniversary and a certain alpha is there to help him through it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This idea struck me while I was trying to sleep and made me get out of bed to blearily write keywords on a sticky note - in the dark. The next day I wrote and wrote until this fic was born. It's short but I love it.
> 
> Teen Wolf does not belong to me. No copyright infringement intended.

Stiles sighed, once again tossing and turning on his bed. Letting out a grunt of annoyance, he half-sat up and turned to punch his pillow, trying to make it comfortable. It usually was, but tonight… Tonight nothing would be able to comfort him.

Flopping back down, his head hit his pillow but his eyes stayed wide open, staring up at his bedroom’s ceiling. His eyes traced the glow-in-the-dark stars he’d stuck up there when he was eight. His mom had helped him research the constellations so he could place the stars in the correct positions.

His mom. Stiles choked back a sob. He brought his fist up to his mouth, trying to hold back his tears and the sounds that were being forcibly wrenched from his chest. He didn’t know why he bothered. His dad was on the night shift again. The house was empty. No one would hear him.

Stiles’ eyes slammed shut. Empty. There was a gaping, empty hole in his chest where his mom should have been. He’d lost her too soon. He was just a _kid_.

Stiles trembled, memories – good and bad – crashing over him. Glancing at his bedside clock, he noted the time. 12:49 AM. So it was official. Today was his mother’s 8th year anniversary.

Sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Stiles hung his head, his arms dangling limply in between his thighs.

Would it ever get easier?

No. Probably not. Eight years later and he still felt as if there was  a raw, jagged hole in his chest.

His mind drifted to Derek. Stiles had lost his mother. Derek had lost _everyone_. How did the alpha deal with it? How did he manage to even get out of bed in the morning? What did he have that motivated him to go on?

 _His pack_ , Stiles’ mind supplied the answer. Sure, their coming together had been rough and out of sync, but in the few years that’s past, Derek’s pack had become just that: a pack.

Stiles frequently caught himself staring at the content expression Derek often sported. The older werewolf had come a long way from the angry, slam-your-face-into-your-steering-wheel, closed-off person he first was when he arrived back in Beacon Hills. He was settled and balanced now, happy to alpha his group of ragtag teenagers – six werewolves, a hunter, a kitsune, a banshee, and a human. And Peter, of course.

Stiles wondered how Derek did it. Because tonight, Stiles felt as if he was breaking apart. And the only person he wanted was his mother.

Silent tears rolled down his cheeks. He didn’t bother to wipe them away when he knew more would just follow.

In a light-bulb moment, Stiles sat up straight, his mind getting more and more convinced of the idea that struck him. He jumped up and headed to his shoe rack, selecting two at random and stuffing his feet in them. Grabbing his wallet from his nightstand, he shoved it in the pocket of his pajama pants and hurried out of this room and down the stairs to the front door.

He couldn’t bring back his mom. But he could bring back something of her.

***

Stiles pulled up into the 24-hour supermarket’s mostly empty parking lot. Not for the first time, he wondered if this was a bad idea.

He shook his head and swiped his hand roughly across his face, determined to see this through. Hopping out of his car, he gave Roscoe a fond pat before slowly making his way to the entrance. The harsh fluorescent lights inside the supermarket made him blink. His eyes still burned and his throat was still clogged up. Anyone who saw him now would see what a mess he really was – dressed in pajama bottoms and an Avengers t-shirt, with mismatched shoes, eyes red-rimmed, nose stuffed. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

Lowering his head, he determinedly marched up to the shopping cart rack and took one. He had some ingredients to hunt down.

***

Stiles filled up his shopping cart with the necessary ingredients. He knew them all by heart. He had the eggs, the brown sugar, the flour, the peanut butter, baking soda and powder… All that was left was the butter.

He rounded the corner, pushing his cart forward when he came to a sudden halt when he felt a bump on his cart, making him stumble back a step.

Stiles’ head snapped up, eyes wide. “D-Derek?” he stuttered.

“Stiles,” Derek replied, pleasant surprise tinging his voice. It took less than half a second for the werewolf’s expression to morph from surprise to concern, his eyes flashing a brief, vibrant red. “What’s wrong?” he demanded.

Stiles averted his eyes. “Nothing.” The roughness of his voice gave him away.

Derek abandoned his cart – filled with a protein shake mix, crackers, and fruit loops cereal – to come up next to Stiles. The alpha reached out and laid a comforting hand on Stiles’ arm. “You’re upset. Did something happen?”

Stiles shook his head mutely, refusing to look his alpha in the eye.

Derek was silent for a moment, before he let out a sharp exhale. “It’s today, isn’t it?”

Stiles’ head snapped around to stare at Derek in astonishment. “How –”. His question hung in the air.

“You’re my pack-mate,” Derek said simply.

Stiles’ heart warmed for one moment, thudding wildly before turning ice cold again as images of his mother lying on a hospital bed flashed through his head. Tears welled up in his eyes again and his shoulders jerked with the force of the silent sob that wracked through him.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Derek said quietly.

In a corner of his mind, Stiles noted that Derek moved his items into Stiles’ shopping cart. He distantly remembered Derek herding him to the checkout counter, barely remembers protesting as Derek paid for both their items.

Everything was a blur until Derek ushered him outside. The cool night air was like a cold douse of awareness. Stiles heaved in a shuddering breath and shivered. He didn’t even bat an eye when Derek shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over Stiles’ shoulders. The instant warmth that surrounded him forced another shiver out of him.

“Thanks,” Stiles said quietly, but in the still night air, it still sounded too loud.

They sat in silence, out there on the curb outside of the supermarket. Stiles stared at the scene in front of him; beyond the parking lot, beyond the tall buildings, he could make out the gentle movement of the trees marking the entrance of the Preserve.

Eventually, Derek broke the silence. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Stiles let out a short, sharp laugh. It was a miserable sound that made Derek flinch. “No. How is that going to help?”

Derek shrugged lightly. “I wish I’d talked to Laura about the fire. I wish I’d told her the truth about what really happened.”

Stiles stared at Derek for a long moment. The alpha rarely brought up his family. – and almost never voluntarily. Stiles stayed quiet for a moment, his head a tangled mess of memories and emotions.

Wrapping Derek’s leather jacket tighter around himself, he inhaled deeply, smelling Derek’s comforting scent. “She loved to bake,” he spoke eventually, voice soft.

Glancing up at Derek, Stiles saw that the older man’s face was open, inviting. Stiles let out a shuddering sigh and began.

“She’d always make me these delicious peanut butter cookies. Every time I was upset. When I didn’t get picked for the team in gym at school. When I was picked on for having ADHD. When I fell down from my bike and scraped my knees. It was her cure for sadness, and man, it worked every time. Sometimes, when I couldn’t sleep, we’d both sneak downstairs and she’d start baking. She’d let me help her sometimes. I cherished those moments with her. It was when I was happiest. Dad would be lured down by the smell of the cookies baking. He’d pretend to be mad that we woke him up, but all three of us knew how happy he really was. He loved her.” Stiles swallowed, voice hoarse, “After my mother… After she was gone, I couldn’t eat any peanut butter cookies. It almost made me have a panic attack to even be in a bakery, smelling those cookies… The smell was never right. Never like the way she used to make them. It just reminded me, over and over again, that she was gone.

“One day, my dad came home from work and wordlessly handed me a packet of Reese’s peanut butter cups. It was his way of trying to… connect. To show me that he was there. That he wouldn’t ever try to replace my mother, or erase her presence, but that I wasn’t alone. That I still had him. It was hard for us in the beginning. I acted out, he was grieving… We both weren’t in a good place. But that was the first time I didn’t have a nightmare when I slept.”

Stiles paused and shrugged his shoulders, trying to make light of a situation that painfully wasn’t. He paused mid-shrug and his shoulders drooped. He didn’t have to pretend in front of Derek.

“The ingredients…” Derek prompted.

Stiles breathed in deeply, pushing away the scent memories of cookies that smelled _wrong_. He replaced them with memories of his mom baking in their kitchen, hair loose and smile easy. “I thought I’d bake the cookies my mom used to make me. I wanted to feel like she was there with me.”

When Stiles stopped talking, Derek stayed silent. It wasn’t awkward or stilted, it wasn’t the silence people fell in when they didn’t know how to deal with others’ grief. It was companionable and _safe_. He alpha reached over and clasped Stiles’ hands into one of his, rubbing his thumb soothingly over the teenager’s cold skin.

Stiles swallowed. “Isn’t it supposed to get easier?” The pleading note in his voice didn’t go unnoticed by either of them.

Derek surprised Stiles by shaking his head fiercely. “There is no ‘supposed to’ here Stiles. Grief works differently for everyone. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you to just _get over it_ or _time heals all wounds_. They don’t _know_.”

Stiles nodded imperceptibly, taken aback by how Derek just _understood_. Scott was Stiles’ brother, but even he was at a loss sometimes on how to deal with Stiles when he got into one of his moods. Not Derek, though. Derek had seen his fair share – _more_ than his fair share – of loss. He _knew_.

Stiles turned up his hand in Derek’s grasp to grip the werewolf’s hand tightly. “Thank you,” he whispered.

They stayed like that for a long time, and if this were any other night, any night other than his mother’s anniversary, Stiles’ cheeks would be coloring in embarrassment and delight – his feelings for Derek had been developing until they turned into full-fledged, all-encompassing, want-to-be-with-you-forever kind of emotions. But tonight, Stiles simply accepted the comfort his alpha offered him.

He didn’t know how much time passed, but eventually Derek got up, grabbing Stiles’ hand in one of his and picking up the grocery bags one-handedly with the other.

“Come on,”

“Where are we going?” Stiles asked while following Derek to his Jeep.

Derek didn’t pause from leading Stiles to his car, but he looked back at the teen, a soft smile pulling up the corners of his lips. “Home. We’ve got some baking to do.”

**Author's Note:**

> Initially I'd planned to take the fic further and actually show Stiles and Derek getting together, but I just loved where I ended it that I had to post it like this. I might write a little something-something later on to add to it, though. 
> 
> Since in the show they mentioned that Stiles was 10 when Claudia was in the hospital, I've determined that to be his age when his mother passed. That puts him at 18 in this fic.
> 
> Drop me a line, make me smile ;)


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